Industry news

Accenture has been awarded a 10-year technology consulting and outsourcing contract by the Thomas Cook Group plc, which includes the transformation and management of the travel group’s technology infrastructure across Europe. The financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.

Under the agreement, Accenture will design and implement an agile IT infrastructure that integrates the travel services company’s separate European IT structures into a single group organization. This new infrastructure will draw on public and private cloud technologies to help transform IT operations, processes, methods and systems to provide a platform for the efficient growth of the business. In addition, Accenture will deliver technology infrastructure management, IT service delivery, service management, service desk, data center services, workspace services, network services and security services.

Accenture will also provide finance and accounting BPO services to Thomas Cook as part of the contract, in addition to extending by three years a 10-year contract signed in 2007 for Accenture to provide application management, technology infrastructure management, finance and accounting, human resources and payroll services to Thomas Cook’s UK operations, and by seven years, a five-year contract for hotel settlement support services for Thomas Cook Germany.

“We are delighted to expand our collaboration with Accenture to leverage their world-class expertise and capabilities in transforming our IT operations by implementing new, lean technology that is ‘cloud enabled’”, said Gary Edwards, Group CIO at Thomas Cook Group plc. “This will help Thomas Cook deliver significant savings, while creating the agility we need to respond to customer needs.”

The Capita Group Plc has today agreed to acquire the private sector division of Vertex (`Vertex Private Sector') for a cash consideration of £40.5m on a cash free, debt free basis.

Vertex Private Sector is a contact centre focused outsourcing business, which is particularly strong in the retail, utilities and telecommunications markets.

Its customers include Marks & Spencer, The National Trust and Scottish Power.

The division made a pro forma operating profit for its financial year to 31 March 2011 of £4.6m on turnover of £48.8m.

Paul Pindar, Capita Chief Executive, said: “This acquisition will bring new expertise and capabilities that will not only strengthen our existing proposition, but will also open up new market opportunities in the private sector.”

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD announced that HCL Technologies, a leading global technology and IT enterprise company, is to establish a Software Delivery centre in Dublin. The company, which is an IDA Ireland client, will create 80 jobs over 3 years for IT graduates.

HCL Technologies is a leading global IT services company, with over 85,000 employees working across 31 countries and leverages its extensive global offshore infrastructure to provide holistic, multi-service delivery in key industry verticals including Financial Services, Manufacturing, Consumer Services, Public Services and Healthcare.

At today’s announcement Minister Bruton said "The real economic success story of Ireland in the mid/late 1990s was based in part on tapping into the global IT boom going on at that time. If we are to get out of the crisis we're in and create the jobs we so badly need, a key part of that will be to build on our established strengths and once again now take advantage of the rapid growth in the global IT industry - particularly coming from countries like India and China.

By 2015, India's spending on green IT and sustainability initiatives will double from $35 billion in 2010 to $70 billion in 2015, according to Gartner, Inc.

In the Gartner report “Hype Cycle for Green IT and Sustainability in India, 2011,” analysts said green IT and sustainability have found their way into the IT organizations of many industries in India. Although still buzzwords for many, they will soon emerge as top priorities for businesses, investors and technology professionals across industries and policymakers in India.

“India's information and communication technology (ICT) industry will be an early adopter of green IT and sustainability solutions as India is one of the fastest-growing markets in terms of IT hardware and communications infrastructure consumption, “ said Ganesh Ramamoorthy, research director at Gartner. “As enterprises embrace IT to improve productivity and drive growth, penetration of ICT infrastructure has been growing rapidly during the past decade, as has the energy consumption and resulting carbon emissions of India's ICT infrastructure.”

The Commons Public Accounts Committee publishes its report, examining the delivery and cancellation of the FiReControl project.

The Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, said: "The Department's ambitious vision of abolishing 46 local fire and rescue control rooms around the country and replacing them with nine state of the art regional control centres ended in complete failure. The taxpayer has lost nearly half a billion pounds and eight of the completed regional control centres remain as empty and costly white elephants.

The success of the so-called FiReControl project crucially turned on the cooperation of locally accountable and independent Fire and Rescue Services. The Department’s failure both to recognize this and try to ensure local buy-in fatally undermined the project from the start. The project was rushed, without proper understanding of costs or risks. The leadership relied far too much on external consultants and the frequent departures of senior staff also contributed to weak management and oversight of the project."

This rise, more than twice the rate of inflation, is part of a deal agreed by PCS after Fujitsu doubled the amount of money in the pot with an extra £500,000.

It will mean some workers who were paid just £13,500 two years ago will now not be paid less than £15,500, an increase of almost 15%.

The union's 720 members working on contracts across the UK for DVLA, HM Revenue and Customs, Home Office, Ministry of Defence and Office of National Statistics, were planning a co-ordinated strike with colleagues from the Unite union on Monday 19 September.

The Unite action, over separate issues, will go ahead and PCS members have pledged their support by: writing to Fujitsu calling on them to resolve the dispute; sending a message of support to Unite; sending a PCS delegation to Unite picket lines on the day; and doing workplace collections for Unite's hardship fund.

Prior to the strike vote, Fujitsu was refusing to increase a pay offer that would have meant rises of between just 1.5% and 2.5%.

The Bank of England has selected a storage area network (SAN) from EMC to support a storage mandate for a subsequent 5 years, awarding a association a £1 million agreement for a initial sustenance of 70 terabytes-worth of capacity.

A contract endowment notice published on a EU’s electronic tenders registry reveals that one of a Band of England’s primary mandate was a ability to deliver a new storage apparatus gradully, swapping out bequest systems as it grows.

The systems should be expandable adult to 900 terabyes, a proposal reveals, and should criticism for a serve of practical desktop infrastructure in a future. Specifically, it should be means to support 3,500 practical desktops with no dump in performance.

PRISA Media Group, the world's largest Spanish language media conglomerate, has selected IBM (NYSE: IBM) to create a new digital media platform as part of the firm's commitment to technology innovation and digital business development.

PRISA will use IBM analytics software and services over a three year period to consolidate, manage and distribute content across all its media platforms, and enhance its ability to provide its consumers with more personalized content in real-time.

PRISA Media Group operates in 22 countries and reaches more than 50 million consumers through its global brands including Spain's leading newspaper, El Pais, as well as satellite television, radio and book publishing media holdings. The project is part of PRISA Media Group's efforts to improve insights into consumers' content preferences and expand the firm's reach to more than 700 million people worldwide.

IBM's advanced analytics technology will help PRISA quickly monitor and measure the flow of content and the preferences of media consumers. The integration of data will provide a better understanding of the business, assist in developing media products such as advertising and other editorial content focused on customer needs and behavior, and enable the business to identify and create new opportunities for monetization of its assets.

According to Kamal Bherwani, Chief Digital Officer of PRISA Digital, "We chose to work with IBM on this important initiative because of their long experience in the media industry and proven track record with innovation and change. IBM technologies will help PRISA continue its transformation into a 21st century media company that thrives on traditional and new media channels."

Employers and the government have joined forces to launch an initiative to transform the school IT curriculum after stinging criticisms of the teaching of the subject by Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, last month.

Launching the “Behind the Screen” scheme, David Willetts, the science minister, told the British Science Festival in Bradford that the idea had been in development since last year. But he promoted the project, which will see a greater emphasis on creating software and writing computer programs, as a response to Mr Schmidt’s Edinburgh MacTaggart lecture.

As the Government and contractors rally to rebuild Croydon, after being one of the worst affected areas by the rioting, Call Britannnia’s Chair encourages businesses to consider its call centre for outsourcing.

Call Britannia, a social enterprise call centre business, employs long term unemployed people in its 150 seat operation in Croydon. Its plans are to replicate the Croydon operation in other similar cities and equip people with the training and skills to enable them to find sustainable employment.

Currently there are 60 agents who are trained and experienced and having been long term unemployed it is a workforce with absolute passion and commitment to achieving high customer service expectations. Call Britannia clients have included Kidney Research UK, Home Serve and Top Table.